March 3rd, 2026
First off we are now out of Egypt and in Athens. We had no issues and would not have even known there was trouble if it was not for the news and internet. We were able to finish the Nile River cruise without issue but we do know that all Viking Nile River cruising was stopped on March 5th and any one on the river was turned around and flown back to Cairo. So we were very lucky to finish the cruise. We had a friend who was supposed to be on the Nile next week and got notification that the cruise was canceled but then they got another e-mail today saying that Viking would resume cruising March 13th. The crew gets 1 week off and hopefully things won’t escalate.
Now back to the cruise updates. The boat was docked overnight in Aswan and today’s excursion was a boat ride to a Nubian village, Philae Temple and a Papyrus Institute. Then we would sail the afternoon and do another Temple in the evening.
The Nubians were the displaced country that got submerged when the Aswan dam got built. There are still lots of Nubians along the banks of the Nile River and into the Sahara dessert. We loaded into a small motorized boat that pulled up right in front of our river boat and took a 45 minute ride along the Nile to the Nubian village.
The type of boat we took to the village.
The dunes of the Sahara desert reflected in the Nile.
Nubian villages are very colorful and rely on camels to get from village to village.
When we got to there we were greeted by camels and there were local shops selling spices. The blue is Indigo which they use to dye clothes and also in paint to decorate.
We toured through a local house which was quite large with multiple rooms and a large common area. The walls were very colorful and the houses were surprisingly cool.
The floor is dirt but well packed dirt. One thing I did not take a picture of was the large pit they have in the center of the common room which houses crocodiles. It has concrete walls, it’s square and it has fencing over the top. Supposedly every Nubian house has these “pet” crocodiles. The kids find the eggs on the river bank and hatch them and keep them in these pens in the house for the crocodiles entire life. The house we were in had 2 large ones, about 5 feet each and 3 smaller ones. The smaller ones were separated from the larger ones. The kids play with the baby crocs and carry them around but once they get bigger they go into the pen.
We spent 20 minutes in the village, touring the house, using the rest room and going up to the roof to see the view which was not much of a view. There was a lady doing henna tattoos for 5 dollars but several people were in line and we were not there that long.
We decided to spend a dollar on the way back to the boat and had our picture taken with one of the camels. These were much smaller camels than the ones we rode by the pyramids of Giza.
We took the boat back to Aswan where a bus was waiting to take us Philae Temple.
More pictures of the colorful Nubian villages against the backdrop of the Sahara.
Osprey checking us out and look at those talons.
We took a bus to the staging area for the temple and then we had to take another boat to the actual temple. A local came on board with tons of handmade jewelry including beaded necklaces and bracelets and also jewelry made from camel bone. Kathy found another necklace she liked for $5 and I got a nice little booklet that shows all the Gods of Egypt and what they stand for. I confess I was getting a bit confused.
The Temple of Philae is on an island and it was one of the several temples that got relocated when the dam was built. You can see the old site from the island where the Temple now resides. The Temple was built sometime around 370BC and is dedicated to the goddess Isis. The temple was underwater for years and then during the low season of the Nile it took workers 8 years to fully deconstruct and reconstruct the temple on this current site.
The Temple of Phil
These are carvings of 2 of the Gods they worshipped.
We spent an hour there and then took the boat back to the staging area. After walking through the “valley of the vendors” we were back on the bus and off to the papyrus institute. Here they showed us how the ancients made paper out of papyrus for both writing and artwork. I would have taken a picture but I left my phone on the bus. They had a huge art gallery with lots of different paintings and sizes and several people bought some pieces. The prices were reasonable but nothing we needed.
After 30 minutes spent there it was back to the boat and they had a barbecue for us on the open deck while we sailed back to our next stop.
Our open deck barbecue and they played music and the crew entertained us. We also had fresh pressed sugarcane drinks with rum. Our cruise director told us that we are the only boat that has a sugarcane press and also the only one that does the top deck barbecue. It was a fun sail away.
We had a leisurely afternoon and then at 4:30 we got off the boat and walked to Kom Ombo Temple which was very close to where the ship tied up.
This temple is famous because it is one of the few temples dedicated to 2 Gods, Sobek and Horus. Sobek has the body of man and the head of a crocodile and Horus has the body of a man and the head of a falcon. The picture on the left shows Horus.
Sobek is shown in this carving.
Kom Ombo Temple is 2000 years old and also famous for having the first carvings depicting surgical instruments.
The temple is also called the “House of the Crocodiles”. Archaeologists found over 300 mummified crocodiles in the temple. There is also a museum next to the temple dedicated to crocodiles. They have a large amount of stuffed crocodiles some measuring 17 feet in length. There were also crocodile sarcophagus displayed, weird.
They also had some of the mummified crocodiles.
We were back on board by 6pm when we set sail for Edfu.
This is what you had to go through on your way back to the boat. Vendors trying to sell you stuff the whole way back. Prices went lower and lower as you got closer to the boat. the scarves were throw over your shoulder or the clothes were blocking your path, persistent.
We have 1 more temple on this cruise and then back to Luxor for our flight back to Cairo.